Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

As opposed to Brian "Asshat" Herbert? Of course I mean, editing and publishing his father`s notes and manuscripts?

The comparison has come up from time to time. It's generally been agreed that Chris' approach is vastly superior. I think you'll find most of us would love to get our hands on Frank's notes etc, if indeed there are any, so that we can judge for ourselves how he might have proceeded with Dune 7.

SadisticCynic wrote:The comparison has come up from time to time. It's generally been agreed that Chris' approach is vastly superior. I think you'll find most of us would love to get our hands on Frank's notes etc, if indeed there are any, so that we can judge for ourselves how he might have proceeded with Dune 7.

That`s what I thought. I should have known the subject would have come up before. Shame his son couldn`t have written 7 and left well enough alone.

There is nothing scholarly, respectful, or even thought out about Bobo's approach to his father's literary estate, so no, it does not measure up.

Omphalos wrote:There is nothing scholarly, respectful, or even thought out about Bobo's approach to his father's literary estate, so no, it does not measure up.

For real. I was so excited about the "new" stories, but after reading the "prequels", I couldn`t take a shower hot enough to remove the taint. Bastard.

You think the prequels are bad? Try reading "Hunters" and "Sandworms." Those two books actually made me angry. It is almost as though KJA and Brian said, "Sorry, Frank, that isn't how it's done. THIS is how you write epic sci-fi."

Thank the Maker I haven't read their interquels.

The great tragedy is that Widdle Bwian Hewbewt wanted to be a big best-sewwing witer like Daddy was. Archiving and documenting just isn't nowhere as SEXAY! And besides, he'd had enough of that cleaning up after other people and analysis and writing up all the details when he was a hotel maid and insurance claims adjuster!

Thank gawd he found a prolific writer like Kevin J. Anderson to make all his dweams come twoooooooo!


(Or, he could be an evil mastermind just using the dumbass hack for his own nefarious purpose: tearing down the life's work of the Daddy whose love he's convinced himself he lacked as a child. Either way, fuck him and all who stand with him.)

I wonder...would reading the "Books 7" count as a gom jabbar test? I only read the synopsis and that was bad enough.

I have to agree with wanting more of the notes. The only thing I read by either author that I liked was "Dreamer of Dune" because it gave some actual insights into who Frank was.

Yes, Chris is doing it right. Notice how he didn't contract the fantasy equivalent of KJA and proceed to crap on every detail in the Lord of the Rings.

He's doing it right because he understands Step One of the process:

Respect the work.

Everything else is just details. If you ain't got Step One ... well, then you're Bobo Herbert, bending over and grabbing ankle for a useless Rent-A-Hack™.

That's asking a big much, isn't it? He thinks of Dune as a "giant sandbox"; has called it that repeatedly.

What cat respects the stuff in the box where it shits?

I'm sure he thinks of it as that because of all the sand. I could imagine him being the type to try and erect a jungle gym in the middle of the Sahara.

Chris T is doing more or less perfect work, I can't really imagine how he could be doing a better job frankly.

I for one would highly NOT recommend reading Hunters and Sandworms. What KJA and BH had done to Dune was something of a joke to me up until Sandworms, then it really hit me emotionally in a very negative way.

Chris T? Literary trust-fund baby but 100% loyal to his old man's work, also good enough to find the movies sticking in his craw. Still haven't read Children of Hurin yet, seems a bit redundant with what had already been published, but from what I've read at the shops, it is in no way a desecration.

My own negative emotional hit from BH came on the second reading of House Atreides , first time through I slowly started to see that their lies about 'notes' had no basis, rereading the thing again, the Salusan bullshit was all too clear.

Lolronica wrote:Literary trust-fund baby

Are you forgetting that Christopher Tolkien was almost 40 when Lotr crested.

This is not CT.

Point taken, though the crest is harder to define. I love CT's work on the sagas of Middle Earth, purely jealous of the easy life, but CT has handled it with great grace, unlike the HLP gang.

Lolronica wrote:Chris T? Literary trust-fund baby but 100% loyal to his old man's work, also good enough to find the movies sticking in his craw. Still haven't read Children of Hurin yet, seems a bit redundant with what had already been published, but from what I've read at the shops, it is in no way a desecration.

My own negative emotional hit from BH came on the second reading of House Atreides , first time through I slowly started to see that their lies about 'notes' had no basis, rereading the thing again, the Salusan bullshit was all too clear.

CT EXPANDED on the story.

Christopher Tolkien has enriched the world.

Brian Herbert has rubbed the world's nose in the product of a diarrheic hack he let play in his father's "sandbox".

Well, that's a lovely image...

That poor jungle gym....

"For godssakes, get that diarrheic brat off the swings! Quick!"

Hackerson and Broin had the gall (have the URL somewhere), maybe the same interview cited elsewhere, to claim that their few lame short stories and Spiceworld are to the Dune Universe as the Silmarillion is to Middle Earth. Pull the other one, boys.
Lost Tales gives you a wealth of detail about exactly where JRT was and what he wrote that wasn't released, still haven't read all 12 volumes, but a truly lovely work, very rewarding to the reader, and absolute proof that CT worked purely from love and respect for his father's creation. Between seeing the commentary here and reading three of their novels, I don't believe the Spiceworld draft really existed, at least in anything like the published form.

As someone who`s read or owns everything that the Great Man has written, (at least, that has seen the light of day), plus all the ancillary books about him and Middle-Earth, plus all the Hildebrant calendars, etc., I can definitely say that CT would no more write a book set in the franchise than he could pull a Balrog out of his ass. Plus, and more importantly, HE WOULD NEVER EVEN CONSIDER IT. That`s why you can tell that Brian saw the moolah pouring into the Tolkien estate and said, "Durr, I can haz too?"

How many petitions or attempts have been made to request Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson to release the two safety deposits of Frank Herbert's notes? (If they really do exist, since we suspect that they may not.) Have they given weird rationalities for why they won't release the notes to the public?

No idea, but we had a sign-up/petition thread over on Dune Novels at one time calling for them to release at least the outline. It had over 100 names on it, IIRC.

But they let someone post some shit in the thread that fucked up the format, essentially sabotaging the effort. (Byron or the webmaster probably could have edited the offending post and fixed the problem fairly easily if they had wanted to.) I haven't checked it to see if it's still messed up or not.

These aren't people who are amenable to such requests/attempts, so they're really a waste of time & effort.